All of us at Irwell Medical Practice aim to provide high quality healthcare to you, our patients. All our staff are dedicated to offer a professional service and strive to be courteous, friendly, and helpful to you.

There is also advice about how to deal with common health problems, and how to keep yourself healthy.

The practice is based on the former Irwell Mill site and is now a spacious and modern Health Centre in the centre of Bacup.

Dear community/health partnership member,

We're writing to you because we need your help. We have reached a critical point in the COVID-19 pandemic.

Firstly, we want to thank you for all that you are doing to keep yourself and our community safe. We know how difficult the period of local restrictions and national lockdown has been, but these sacrifices are a really important part of what is needed to reduce COVID-19 in Rossendale.

The good news is that infection rates in Rossendale are moving in the right direction and are beginning to decline. However, it is important that we don’t become complacent and we continue to follow the guidelines to ensure that trend continues.

The situation is still critical, and we all need to act if the national lockdown is to have the impact that is needed. We must do everything we can to follow the lockdown rules if we are going to save lives, protect our NHS and social care services and avoid severe restrictions over the Christmas period. The only way we will end restrictions and get back to normal is by pulling together.

We all need to play our part in reducing the spread of the virus. There are three big things that we can all do to protect ourselves, our loved ones and our communities:

• Limit contact with other people
• Wear a face covering if we have to go indoors where there are other people we don’t live with, such as when food shopping or on public transport
• Stay at home without visitors and complete the full isolation period if we have symptoms of COVID-19 or a positive test result, or if we have been in contact with someone who has - Rawtenstall will have a testing centre until the end of January 2021.

The council have been sharing this message via our social media channels to good effect and we are now asking for your help in getting the message out further and wider to the people of Rossendale. We want local voices to reinforce our key messages

• #LetsDoItForRossendale
• Working together we can make a difference
• It’s up to us

We are now asking for your help in the following ways.

• Share the council's social media messages about COVID-19 on your own social media pages
• Make very short videos (on smartphones is ideal) of members of your groups, preferably wearing a face covering, saying - “I’m doing it for my nan, for my children, for my community, for Rossendale” anything they feel comfortable saying
• Photographs of people, again wearing face coverings, holding a small white board (we will provide and will have the councils distinctive pink and black warning stripes) where they have written the messages suggested above.

The council will then share these images and videos on our social media pages. Having local voices and local people reinforcing the important key messages we believe will be more effective and resonate more with the people of Rossendale.

The situation is obviously changing and moving quite quickly so it’s important we act fast too. If you would like to get involved, please contact the council’s Comms team by emailing jac@vivapr.co.uk with your details or contact Alison Wilkins at the council AlisonWilkins@rossendalebc.gov.uk

Medical Record

Lancashire and South Cumbria has been chosen by NHS England to be a national pilot for the digitisation of Medical Records.  Scanning these paper based records and making them digital will enable better utilisation of space, creating more clinical space, staff areas, multi team space and video hubs, removing the need for some practices to build extensions. In addition it will also make your record more easily and speedily accessible to clinical staff within your practice.

Your complete GP medical record will be digital and stored in a secure cloud based clinical system (only accessible by your GP practice) with the paper based records being securely destroyed following BS EN 15713:2009 Secure destruction of confidential material.  Your GP will still be able to access your records easily within this system. The scanning and destruction of the paper records will follow strict data protection guidelines adhered to by the NHS.  As with paper based records, digital records are stored for the durations specified in the Records Management Codes of Practice for Health and Social Care. For GP patient records, this states that they may be destroyed 10 years after the patient’s death if they are no longer needed.

If you wish to discuss the scheme, please inform the Practice direct either by letter or via e-mail irwellmedicalpractice@nhs.net